American Exceptualism Rudy
Giuliani was espousing his opinion to Fox News that Barack Obama did not
love America and didn’t brag enough about “American Exceptionalism.”

Fur Is Not Chic When my 25-pound
dog stepped in a toothed steel leg hold trap a few ft off the trail, I
learned how “unchic” fur is. I had to carry her out two miles to get to a
vet.

Which Is More Dangerous? Just
a couple of thoughts I had in response to the letters by Gordon Lee
Dean and Jarin Weber in the Feb. 23 issue. Mr. Dean claims that there
have been zero deaths from the measles in the past ten years.

Real Action on Climate In
“Climate Madness” in the Feb. 9 issue, the writer points out that
scientists are all but unanimous and that large numbers of people agree:
global warming poses a threat to future generations.

Real Science Wolfgang
Pauli, the Nobel Prize winning Austrian-born theoretical physicist, was
known not only for his work in postulating the existence of the
neutrino but feared for his razor-edged humor.

Letters12/05/2011

Only one letter per reader in a two month period will be accepted. Letters may be edited for length or to correct factual errors. Letters must be signed to be considered for print and a phone number is required for verification. Faxed are not accepted.

Parade a success

The Charlevoix parade made us all so thankful to live up North where spirit matters most!

I remember the day I brought up the parade at the chamber retail committee. It has been a huge success in Iron Mountain with the children bringing their teddy bears, dressing their dogs up to walk the parade and other animals and community people involved. At first no one was truly excited.

And even at the last retail meeting Jackie stated that we only had a few entries. Wow, did the idea ever grow into a mighty powerful little parade. Thank you Erin and Jackie for pulling so many floats together.

From all the comments I heard, this after-Thanksgiving event was the most successful ever in getting families downtown to enjoy the entire duration of all the events.

The Charlevoix Circle of Arts Santa workshop and all the children who colored Todd Warner’s drawings and made such lovely decorations for the tree. Marrell who took hundreds of photographs of the children speaking to Santa, the lighting of the tree and the colorful parade with dressed up dogs and angel, horses, floats and music. Next year let’s have the reindeer too!

We saw people coming out of Whitney’s to take photos and car loads of families rushing down to be close to the parade.

No matter what, this was the most positive gathering I have heard or seen in a long time. The floats were great and the children who participated were soooo excited to be a part of their city celebration.

Amazing what the people in this community can do when they form a team. Yeah Charlevoix!!! Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Anne Henricksen • Charlevoix

Fracking dangerous

T. Boone Pickens and Big Oil and Coal are working overtime and spending millions of dollars on advertising to convince us that natural gas is the best thing to happen to Michigan since fudge. But if unconventional slick-water fracturing (fracking) is so great, why does it need all the exemptions from law? Fracking is exempt from:

1. The Clean Air Act 2. The Safe Drinking Water Act (The Halliburton loophole) 3. Hazardous waste disposal criteria 4. Superfund law 5. Disclosure of chemicals 6. The Michigan Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool 7. Transparency, disclosure and public participation 8. Reporting of toxic chemicals released or stored under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act The new unconventional, long-leg horizontal, high-volume, slick-water, hydraulic fracturing is not yesterday's fracking. New gas wells in the deep, tight shale of the Collingwood/Utica formation demand new technologies.

Unlike the porous Antrim Shale which gave up gas readily to vertical wells, the tight shales two miles below the Earth’s surface must be shattered uniformly to release tiny gas deposits from minuscule shale pockets. This industrial process destroys natural resources, uses thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals, proppants and surfactants and diverts and poisons millions of gallons of groundwater (disposed of in shallow “deep” injection wells), on a scale new to Michigan. Around the world and the US, environmental and health disasters have followed fracking activities. Michigan has no new rules to regulate unconventional fracking.

In a world that loses precious, potable freshwater each day, it is a crime against humanity to unnecessarily divert and contaminate forever, billions of gallons of freshwater. It is time to develop and transition to energy-efficiency, and clean safe renewable energy resources.

Jo Anne Beemon • Charlevoix

The NOLabels movement

Do you just wish Congress would put their individual party aside and solve problems? Do you just wish that Congress would have respectful discussions and then enact great ideas?

If so, I want you to know there is an up and coming movement, a united voice of at least 180,000 Americans. It is strong and it is growing. The title of this group is NOLabels. Please read about this movement by going to nolabels.org.

NOLabels is not a political party. It is a citizen group effort founded one year ago by a group of Republicans, Democrats and Independents. That’s right, a mixture of party-affliated people.

NOLabels seeks to change the dynamics of the political culture and provide support for the politicians that indeed want to dismiss hyperpartisanship. Support for this group includes such people as former Senator Evan Bayh and Congressman Tom Davis.

If this effort is of interest to you, turn on the television Tuesday, December 13. NOLabels will be unveiling its first big proposal in the historical Capital Hill Caucus Room. The proposal includes twelve change points.

The proposal can be put into action within 24 hrs by just making rule changes as to how Congress acts. It requires no legislative voting. The intent is to reduce hyperpartisanship and bring some positive energy to Congress.

We are the United States of America... let’s bring back the united country we remember and love.

Jill Rahrig Bourdon • TC

Hip hop victim?

Is this lady honestly supposed to count as a victim in a piece of journalism exposure (Hip Hop Flim Flam, last week in the Express)? Not even a middle schooler would give away money in the way she did.

She deserves everything! Does she have job? Well then she should be satisfied, right?

All the rest of us have to be satisfied with merely our jobs, why not her? No one in their right mind would give away $80,000 to a self-published musical artist that they didn’t even enjoy! This is disgraceful to our current political climate, to this town, to this country! What a filthy reprehensible sob story!

Mike Curiel • TC

Tuttle column on the mark

John Kennedy said, “Children are the world’s most valuable resource, and its best hope for the future.”

We in this country give lots of lip service to the importance of taking care of children, but behind it is a lot of hot air.

With conservatives cutting education funding, stiltifying the curriculm and demoralizing teachers, cutting family services and trying to cut health care, any rhetoric about the importance of children rings hollow. We have lost our soul to greed, militarization and power grabbing. Until we take care of all the children, including our 4-legged and winged, we will not be sustainable.